Trump Entertainment Resorts

Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. announced today that it has emerged from Chapter 11 reorganization, days after the New Jersey Casino Control Commission approved a plan that lets Donald J. Trump and his daughter Ivanka retain at least partial control of the company that bears their name. - Inquirer staff

Donald J. Trump is looking to two Atlantic City veterans to turn his struggling casino business around. Mark Juliano, who resigned as president of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on Friday, will replace Mark Brown as head of the three Trump casinos in Atlantic City, according to Trump. Juliano's last day at Caesars Palace is July 31. "I'm very happy about it," Trump said yesterday in a phone interview from New York. "It's fantastic. There's no better team in the business. " Juliano, 50, joins James B. Perry, who was tapped by Trump earlier this month to become chief executive officer of New York-based Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., which operates a riverboat casino in Gary, Ind., in addition to the three casinos in Atlantic City.

A shift manager at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort was fatally shot yesterday in a storage room just off the casino floor. Minutes later, a suspect identified by state police as a 57-year-old man from Norristown, Pa., was arrested inside the casino's parking garage. Police also recovered a handgun that may have been used in the shooting. The manager, identified by a company official as Ray Kot of Egg Harbor Township, was pronounced dead about 5:30 p.m., 2 1/2 hours after the shooting.

Donald J. Trump characterizes billionaire financier Carl Icahn as a good friend but says that his friend doesn't spend money. "I've known him for many years," Trump told a U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing in Camden this morning, referring to the man who has put forth a plan to bring Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. out of its third bankruptcy. But, Trump continued as he answered a question from one of Icahn's lawyers, "He doesn't spend any money. If he spends 10 cents, it's a major event.

Trump Entertainment Resorts has come out a loser in the Pennsylvania casino market. Again. The U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday rejected the two-year bid of the company - known for its three Atlantic City casinos and its high-profile partial owner Donald Trump - to overturn a 2006 ruling by the state Gaming Control Board. Trump, using the name Keystone Redevelopment Partners LLC, pitched a casino at the old Budd Co. plant in Nicetown. The board rejected Trump's bid for one of two casino licenses in Philadelphia, in part because it worried he would use the local casino to draw customers to Atlantic City, where the tax rate on gambling profits is lower.

TRENTON - Ready. Set. Go get married! A couple of New Jersey lawmakers are proposing a bill to eliminate the state's 72-hour waiting period for couples seeking a license to wed. Assemblyman Louis Greenwald, D-Voorhees, and state Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Linden, argue that the law is antiquated - it dates back to 1934 - and getting rid of it would give New Jersey a competitive edge in the wedding-tourism market. Other nearby states, like New York and Delaware, have only 24-hour waiting periods.

Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., owner of two casino hotels in Atlantic City, is about to enter a partnership with another firm to offer online gambling. Trump Entertainment has "determined that such a joint venture represents the most advantageous way for the company to participate in opportunities in online gaming at minimal cost to the company," according to an Oct. 14 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Trump Entertainment would own 10 percent of the new venture.

Gov. Chris Christie this morning allowed Atlantic City's casinos be reopened to the public, six days after his executive order declaring them closed in preparation for Hurricane Sandy's arrival. Christie ordered gaming suspended on Saturday. He said they could reopen starting 10 a.m. today. Sandy officially came ashore in Atlantic City 8 p.m. Monday night and was severely impacted by the storm, with part of the the boardwalk being washed away in the northern end. Christie had suspended operations at all 12 casinos, which forced closure of all the hotels, simulcast facilities and gaming.

Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., which runs three Atlantic City casinos, says it may seek a hotel partner to rehab the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, Bloomberg News reported today. One possibility is a joint venture that would help provide money to, among other improvements, add 560 rooms to the 940-room Trump Plaza, chief executive Mark Juliano told the news service in an interview. This would help the company win more convention business, as the Shore gambling resort seeks to fill the gap created by gamblers' going to nearby states that also offer gambling, Juliano told Bloomberg.

Frederick T. Cunningham, 59, vice president of legal affairs for Trump Entertainment Resorts, died Thursday, Sept. 20, after suffering a heart attack on his way home to Haddon Heights from Atlantic City. Mr. Cunningham also served as secretary of the New Jersey Bar Association's Casino Law Section. He grew up in Levittown, Bucks County, as well as Levittown, Long Island, and graduated from the State University of New York in Brockport in 1974. Mr. Cunningham met his wife, Joanne, while working in the claims department at Colonial Penn Insurance Co. After marrying and starting a family, he studied law at night at Rutgers University Law School in Camden, from which he received his degree in 1986.

The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City is likely to remain open until Dec. 20, as its parent company continues to negotiate for financial aid from the city or the State of New Jersey, the bankrupt Trump Entertainment Resorts said Friday. However, some employees already started working fewer hours this week, Kathleen McSweeney, senior vice president of market operations for Trump Entertainment, said in a statement. The Taj Mahal closed one of its hotel towers Monday, and at that point still planned to close the casino next Friday, according to a Nov. 26 petition on its closing plans filed with the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.

ATLANTIC CITY - Vera Coking famously refused to sell to Donald Trump. But in the end, she sold to Carl Icahn. Property records in Atlantic County show that Coking's famous but now-vacant white house, in the shadow of the famous but now-shuttered Trump Plaza, is now owned by IEH Enterprises - Icahn. The house at 127 S. Columbia Place was sold at auction in August for $583,000. At the time, Atlantic City lawyer Pat Agnellini said he was the bidder on site - and on the phone - who walked away with the winning bid. Agnellini declined to say at the time whom he represented other than himself, or what the plans were for the property.

A federal bankruptcy judge on Friday allowed the owners of Atlantic City's bankrupt Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort to void its contract with its 1,100 union workers. Whether the $15 million in savings will be enough to keep the doors of the troubled casino open is nowhere near a sure bet. In a decision delivered in a Delaware courtroom, Judge Kevin Gross granted a request by the casino's owners, Trump Entertainment Resorts, to end the contract, cutting health and pension benefits.

A bid in bankruptcy court to set aside a labor contract for 1,136 employees at Atlantic City's Trump Taj Mahal casino has set up a pitched battle between Unite Here Local 54 and Carl Icahn. Icahn, a billionaire investor known for taking control of financially distressed businesses by buying debt at a discount, controls the fate of Trump Entertainment Resorts because he owns $286 million in first-lien debt and stands first in line to be paid in any bankruptcy deal. As a condition of keeping Trump Taj Mahal open, Icahn wants massive concessions from labor and government.

K IM KARDASHIAN and Kanye West are finally planning to move out of Kris Jenner 's house. But they're not going far. Don't want to be lugging that reality TV-show equipment all around Cali. TMZ.com reports that the couple of Ks are in escrow for an estate once owned by Lisa Marie Presley only five minutes from their current Calabasas residence. Purchase price was $20 million, a million below the listing. E! News says that the 3 1/2 acre love shack has two pools, two spas, two barbecue centers and its very own vineyard so the pair can get plastered on their own vino and never have to socialize with each other.

ATLANTIC CITY - The California development company that plans to buy Atlantic City's Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino for $20 million says the deal is on hold. In a statement issued late Friday, the Meruelo Group said the sale could not currently be completed as planned because Trump Entertainment had been unable to obtain the release of a mortgage held by a "senior secured lender. " When the deal was announced in February, Meruelo said it hoped to close the sale by May 31 The Press of Atlantic City said Trump spokesman Brian Cahill confirmed Meruelo's statement but had no further comment.

ATLANTIC CITY - This resort's casinos are struggling to deal with the aftermath of Sandy by laying off workers, cutting the hours of others, and making still others take unpaid leaves. The storm forced the city's 12 casinos to close for five to seven days. Since then, business has been slower than normal. The Atlantic Club has turned to layoffs to offset the downturn. The two Trump casinos are making salaried workers take a week off without pay and are barring hourly workers from using vacation days to cover time off during the storm.

Gov. Chris Christie this morning allowed Atlantic City's casinos be reopened to the public, six days after his executive order declaring them closed in preparation for Hurricane Sandy's arrival. Christie ordered gaming suspended on Saturday. He said they could reopen starting 10 a.m. today. Sandy officially came ashore in Atlantic City 8 p.m. Monday night and was severely impacted by the storm, with part of the the boardwalk being washed away in the northern end. Christie had suspended operations at all 12 casinos, which forced closure of all the hotels, simulcast facilities and gaming.

Frederick T. Cunningham, 59, vice president of legal affairs for Trump Entertainment Resorts, died Thursday, Sept. 20, after suffering a heart attack on his way home to Haddon Heights from Atlantic City. Mr. Cunningham also served as secretary of the New Jersey Bar Association's Casino Law Section. He grew up in Levittown, Bucks County, as well as Levittown, Long Island, and graduated from the State University of New York in Brockport in 1974. Mr. Cunningham met his wife, Joanne, while working in the claims department at Colonial Penn Insurance Co. After marrying and starting a family, he studied law at night at Rutgers University Law School in Camden, from which he received his degree in 1986.

ATLANTIC CITY - When Atlantic City rolled out its "Always Turned On" tourism slogan in 2003, critics felt it was a little, well, risque. Nine years later, they've fixed that. The new slogan? "Do AC!" It's part of a $30 million casino-funded campaign to promote the nation's second-largest gambling resort through a group called the Atlantic City Alliance. The slogan, written by an agency the alliance hired, tested well, according to Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority president Jeff Vasser.